Android Phone Data Migration Guide

I recently upgraded my Sprint HTC Hero to a Sprint HTC Evo Shift 4G. I brought the Shift from Radio Shack and the sales person mentioned that I could ‘trade in’ my Hero for a Radio Shack gift card. He said that since my contacts were synchronized with GMail I would be fine. I turned down the offer. I knew that was not the case. I know I have more data that I needed to transfer that were not synchronized via GMail.

I was able to transfer all my data from the Hero to the Shift in about 3 or so hours. If you plan on upgrading your Android hand held and need to know how to transfer your data you came to the right place. Even though I migrated from a Hero to a Shift, these methods are valid for any Android phone. Below you will see what methods I used to transfer all my data. And, if you have data stored in Apps that I don’t cover you should be able to get and idea on how to do it.

Transfer Your Data From One Android to Another
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When I got my first Android hand held, an HTC Hero, I used MyBackup Pro to backup my Apps and data nightly. In reality, there is not much need to backup your Apps as you can always download them from the Market. However, if you need to revert back to an old version of an App after you’ve upgraded it then you will be happy it is in your backup archive.

There were four ways that I used to get data from my old phone to my new one.
1. Syncing via the Internet (App normally uses a login and password and has a Web view of the data)
2. Exporting the data from an App on the old phone and importing it into the App on the new phone
3. Using My Backup to transfer the data
4. Data already stored on SD Card. Moving the card to the new phone is all that is needed. (Music, Movies, Pictures, etc.)

To get started with my migration I followed these steps:

Backup all my Apps and data on my Hero using MyBackup Pro

Enter Google account details into Shift

Download Screen On (Keeps screen on while it is plugged into the USB connector)

Download MyBackup Pro to the Shift

Shut down both the Hero and the Shift and put the Hero’s SD card into the Shift

Almost had a heart attack when I saw the Unrevoked boot screen come up when I restarted the Shift. My Hero was rooted. So there was a recovery.img file on the sdcard. I had to factory reset my Shift. Mount the sdcard back on the Hero and move the recovery.img out of the way.

Did the steps I performed above again and then I was ready to go.

I began downloading the Apps that I used on the Hero to the shift one by one from the Market. A faster way would be to restore your Apps from your MyBackup Pro backup. Once I had the Apps installed I began to migrate my data. Below is the list of Apps I use and the method I used to transfer the data.

Application

Transfer Method

Notes

Calendar (Jorte)

Internet Sync

Google took care of this

Tasks (Jorte)

SD Card Export/Import

Only able to restore tasks this way

SMS (Handcent)

MyBackup Pro

Password Safe

SD Card Export/Import

Keep Track

SD Card Export/Import

Note Everything

SD Card Export/Import

MyBackp Pro option as well. For some reason not all notes came over using MyBackup Pro

OI Shopping

MyBackup Pro

EasyMoney

SD Card Export/Import

You need to have the paid App to import. You have to send an email to EasyApps to get a new key for your new phone

Mail

Internet Sync

Same with any email application. Messages in your POP or IMAP account can be sync’ed

Contacts

Internet Sync

Google took care of these

SpringPad

Internet Sync

Amazon Kindle

Internet Sync

Audible

Internet Sync

Camera/Camcorder

Move SD Card

Documents to Go

Move SD Card

Maps (Starred Places)

Internet Sync

Music

Move SD Card

Export/Import tip: Many applications that store data locally on the Android have an Export/Import facility. You should look through the Menus for the functionality. Once you find it you simply need to export the data from the App on your old phone. Transfer that data file(s) to your new phone. Then, perform the import into the App on the new phone.

Here is the remaining list of Applications that I transferred that did not need data transfer.

Advanced Task Killer

Amex

Audible

BlueRSS

Chase

ConnectBot

Dictionary.com

Digital Clock Widget

DNS Lookup

Documents to Go

Digital Clock Widget

DNS Lookup

ES File Explorer

FXCM

GPS OnOFF

IPCalc

Mint.com

Mortgage Calculator

MortPlayer Audio Books

Mythmote

NYCMate

OSMonitor

Ping

Quick Settings

Photo Frame Widget

Real Calc

RemindMe

Timers4Me

TradeInterceptorMobile

TripAdvisor

Uninstaller

WiFi OnOff

Wikidroid

WordPress

Hope you found this guide helpful. If you have any other suggestions for easy ways to migrate data, please let us know by leaving a comment.

Will I be able to plug in my old SD card to a new phone that is from a different manufacturer. You went from an HTC to a new HTC, but what if I go from a Motorola to an HTC? Will my SD card work or is the format different?

Was your Hero running Android 1.5, or a later version? My wife is facing an upgrade from an original HTC Hero running 1.5 to a new Galaxy II S Epic whatnot. I know the filesystem changed in Android, I think between 1.5 and 1.6.

Hi. You said that google takes care of getting my Jorte calendar. How? I have Jorte on my new phone but don’t have all of my meetings that I had on my old phone. Do I need to do something to get it in?

Also, how do I get the Jorte tasks onto the new phone? My old phone is cracked and screen is unresponsive so I used adb to pull all of the data onto my Mac. I am assuming the Jorte tasks were stored on the phones sd card. What steps do I need to do to export this data from my Mac to the new phone? Thanks!

Did you have Jorte on your old phone sync’ed to your Google Calendar? Can you see your calendar entries in calendar.google.com? In order to have Jorte (or any calendar for that matter) pull in your calendar entries they have to be in Google Calendar in the first place. As for the tasks I would suggest contacting the Jorte team to ask them how to do the import from your Mac. I got this email from their Play store page (mailto:apps@jorte.net).